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Why couldn't variety shows adapt in the 70s?

Some kind of clunky responses here (Sorry, I keep screwing up the quote function)...
1) I definitely considered Carol Burnett's show to be all inclusive of music and comedy. She did a lot of homages to classic Broadway and movie musicals over the years.
2) As far as Ed Sullivan being accepting of his show being canceled, I read a biography of him once called "Impresario", and it claimed his reaction when he learned his show was being taken off the air was, "Well, I'll be a son of a bitch". The book also implied that he may have been in the very early stages of dementia by that time. I can remember only one special he did after his show ended; A holiday special with the Muppets called "The Great Santa Claus Switch".
3) To the original question posed by this thread, gotta agree a lot of it was money. That, and some truly epic flops, like the Brady Bunch variety show, Pink Lady And Jeff, and others just convinced TPTB that variety shows were dead, so basically, perception was reality, and away they went.
 
I remember attending an industry function in the theater once used for the old Hollywood Palace TV show in the 60s. It's now called The Avalon, but at one time it was also called The Hollywood Playhouse. It was quite an interesting place, real old Hollywood, with lots of history. But it struck me that to shoot a TV show there in the early days of video must have been quite a project. Not unlike shooting the Johnny Cash Show in Nashville's aging Ryman Auditorium in the years just before the Opry left. I'm sure they needed to upgrade the electric in both of those places, and then install high power lighting, and the camera angles must have also been a challenge. Much easier and cheaper to do TV in a building that was meant for TV production.
 
Corky Marlowe said:
Some kind of clunky responses here (Sorry, I keep screwing up the quote function)...
1) I definitely considered Carol Burnett's show to be all inclusive of music and comedy. She did a lot of homages to classic Broadway and movie musicals over the years.
2) As far as Ed Sullivan being accepting of his show being canceled, I read a biography of him once called "Impresario", and it claimed his reaction when he learned his show was being taken off the air was, "Well, I'll be a son of a bitch". The book also implied that he may have been in the very early stages of dementia by that time. I can remember only one special he did after his show ended; A holiday special with the Muppets called "The Great Santa Claus Switch".
3) To the original question posed by this thread, gotta agree a lot of it was money. That, and some truly epic flops, like the Brady Bunch variety show, Pink Lady And Jeff, and others just convinced TPTB that variety shows were dead, so basically, perception was reality, and away they went.
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That part was mentioned in the Geoffrey Mark Fidelman book called "The Lucy Book". In the book it discusses the time when Lucille Ball had appeared on The Flip Wilson Show with Ed Sullivan & The Osmonds in September 1971. It mentioned that at the time Sullivan had begun to develop what would be now known as Alzheimer's Disease and that Lucy herself knew that her old friend was in failing health. Looking back now I believe Alzheimer's Disease really didn't become known to most people until what happened to Hollywood great Rita Hayworth in the 80s. At first many people thanks to the tabloids of that era had thought Rita was just a plain drunk instead she was suffering from Alzheimer's.
 
installLSC said:
A while back I read a TV Guide article from 1971 about the Sullivan show cancellation, and it said Sullivan would do several specials a year on CBS. It also claimed Sullivan was for this reason was pretty accepting of his cancellation. Is this true, and how many of the specials actually aired?
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I only remember one special, a 25th Anniversary, not long before he died. Shortly after the show's cancellation, I saw a cartoon in The Saturday Evening Post, showing a small boy asking his mother, "Mommy, who was Ed Sullivan?".

seatownmedia said:
I'm not sure the Carol Burnett Show was considered variety. To me, it was a comedy show. Did they ever have a musical act?

Though, I would give Carol credit for providing one of the last, if not the last, comedy skit program that scored decent ratings. They also understood the "live" look complete with crack-ups, however non-live it actually was! Just brilliant tv, without a question, despite how it was edited.
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I'm wondering if your only exposure to this show is the reruns, which were packaged without the musical acts, probably because of the music rights organizations. The original show had lots of musical guests, who often sang with Carol.
 
Concerning the shows where the host didn't perform like Sullivan and Cosell, would The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show qualify? Also, didn't Dick Clark make some attempts at an Ed Sullivan type show?
 
anotherguy said:
Concerning the shows where the host didn't perform like Sullivan and Cosell, would The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show qualify? Also, didn't Dick Clark make some attempts at an Ed Sullivan type show?
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Larry King made a very brief effort on NBC when he was becoming EXTREMELY overexposed. The one thing I remember about that show is that it was one of the few times where he was wearing a suit/sports coat
 
anotherguy said:
Concerning the shows where the host didn't perform like Sullivan and Cosell, would The Chuck Barris Rah Rah Show qualify? Also, didn't Dick Clark make some attempts at an Ed Sullivan type show?
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There was Dick Clark's Live Wednesday which aired for a brief time on NBC in 1978.
 
I think it is important to realize that there were different types of shows within the "variety show" umbrella. Sullivan was the ultimate variety show because it had all kinds of acts from stand-up comedy, to puppets, to acrobats to singers of all kinds of music. Many of the shows mentioned in this thread (Carol Burnett, Your Show of Shows) were really comedy-skit shows - more similar to SNL than Ed Sullivan. While those shows may have had music (so does SNL), the music was secondary. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was actually closer to a real variety show despite their political agenda - because there was so much music.

Then there was the largest sub-genre, which was the "variety show" tailored to one star or a couple of stars - almost always singers - Andy Williams, Dean Martin, Donnie & Marie, Sonny & Cher - and I agree with the poster above who thought that this kind of show died out because of the cost of production. I suspect that's the main reason.
 
...but all of these shows had a music base, however small, that was based(There's that word again.)on music that adults could relate to. When the next generation became a significant minority, it was all over because there was no longer a consensus.
 
semoochie said:
...but all of these shows had a music base, however small, that was based(There's that word again.)on music that adults could relate to. When the next generation became a significant minority, it was all over because there was no longer a consensus.
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Not Quite. The comedy variety shows had little or no music.

And there had not been a generational "consensus" in music at least since the mid-50s and the dawn of rock n' roll (or R&B by White artists for White kids). In all likelihood, the lack of "consensus" went back even further - probably to the 20's when the "older generation" was complaining about the "younger generation's" music (Hot jazz). Country was always there and several "golden age" radio shows were dedicated to it. R&B. Ethnic music. And there was a generational divide in the big band era between "swing" bands and "sweet" bands.

Young people watched Ed Sullivan because they were willing to sit through acts they didn't like to see acts they did like. Same with their parents. But later they didn't have to. Cable provided more choices. Homes started having second and third TV sets. Changing channels became easier with remotes and no need to adjust antennas. And an often unmentioned factor is inertia - or force of habit. People watched Ed Sullivan because they had always watched Ed Sullivan. Howard Cossell's show (among others) tried to replicate the format but didn't have habit going for them.
 
I'm not sure the predominant timeline fits.

A few Variety shows with their network cancellation years:
Ed Sullivan - 1971
Lawrence Welk - 1971 (although continued in syndication for many more years)
Hee Haw - 1971 (ditto)
Laugh In - 1973
Carol Burnett - 1978
Donny and Marie - 1979
Barbara Mandrell and her Sisters - 1982 (cited by Wikipedia as the last multi-season network variety show)

It doesn't seem to me that cable TV played much of a factor in the end of Hee Haw or Welk or Sullivan, because cable wasn't in very many places in the early 70s. More likely the programs were cancelled as a result of large budgets or bringing in too many viewers in Peoria and not enough in Philly. Burnett and the later examples, Cable might have had an effect.
 
The Carol Burnett Show wasn't cancelled. She decided to cease production.
The Lawrence Welk Show continued in production until 1982 when Welk retired. It is still aired on public television stations.
Hee-Haw continued in production until 1992, and still airs on RFD.

Because a network cancelled a show doesn't mean there wasn't a market for it. Most of the ABC stations that had carried Welk continued with the show in first run syndication. One of the few station groups that did not continue with the show were the ABC owned stations (although the show continued on other stations in those markets).
 
Oscar Madison said:
The Carol Burnett Show wasn't cancelled. She decided to cease production.
The Lawrence Welk Show continued in production until 1982 when Welk retired. It is still aired on public television stations.
Hee-Haw continued in production until 1992, and still airs on RFD.

Because a network cancelled a show doesn't mean there wasn't a market for it. Most of the ABC stations that had carried Welk continued with the show in first run syndication. One of the few station groups that did not continue with the show were the ABC owned stations (although the show continued on other stations in those markets).
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In Welk's case, my guess is that much of his audience was dying off by 1971, and was mostly gone by the early '80s. He was the darling of the Doughboy Generation, the youngest of whom were born around 1900.
 
KeithE4 said:
In Welk's case, my guess is that much of his audience was dying off by 1971, and was mostly gone by the early '80s. He was the darling of the Doughboy Generation, the youngest of whom were born around 1900.
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Who watched it for the next 11 years? Who is watching it now?
 
Oscar Madison said:
Who watched it for the next 11 years? Who is watching it now?
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I have no idea, other than music historians. The WW1 generation is gone now. I know my folks and their contemporaries, who were of the WW2/Korean War era, couldn't stand Welk when he was on ABC. That was their parents' (my grandparents') music.
 
NBC is still trying with recycled SNL in prime time. Will Maya and Marty make it? The Doogie Howser variety show flopped but they keep trying.
 
semoochie said:
I'm wondering if your only exposure to this show is the reruns, which were packaged without the musical acts, probably because of the music rights organizations. The original show had lots of musical guests, who often sang with Carol.
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I saw a few episodes of her show when it first aired, but I have mostly seen the half-hour reruns which mentioned music in the credits even if there generally wasn't any. Very enjoyable, even if the editing of the introduction was sometimes sloppy. I sometimes was looking forward to her asking questions, but after the applause she just said "We'll be right back."
 
I like the reruns of Carol Burnett on Me TV better because I always liked the comedy skits (especially if Tim Conway was in it) better than the music. It, Laugh-in, and SNL were about the only variety shows I cared anything about watching.
 
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